1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, services that integrate or synthesize a plurality of images to provide a three-dimensional representation of a space or an object such as a building have been widespread. These services allow users to view a generated three-dimensional model from various viewpoints, giving the users a sense of immersiveness to make them feel as if they were actually there. However, the computational cost of three-dimensional modeling that uses a plurality of images is high, and a large amount of data is necessary to generate a three-dimensional image itself or other images necessary to generate the three-dimensional image.
In contrast, morphing is an image processing technology for showing how an object gradually changes from one form into another. In the morphing, corresponding pixels in two two-dimensional images (original images) captured from two different viewpoints are linearly interpolated to generate an intermediate image (virtual image) seen from a desired virtual viewpoint between the two viewpoints. Thus, the morphing provides a visual effect as if the viewpoint was moving. According to the morphing, a plurality of intermediate images that would be seen when the viewpoint was moving are sequentially generated through calculation using the two photographed images. Thus, advantageously, the amount of data for images before and after the generation of the images may be significantly reduced.
In the case where morphing is performed using two original images obtained by capturing an object (subject) from two different viewpoints, however, intermediate images generated by the morphing may be distorted if the angle formed by the two viewpoints and the object is too large. In view of the above issue, view morphing (see Steven M. Seitz, Charles R. Dyer, “View Morphing”, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH '96, pp. 21-31, 1996, for example), which is a morphing technique with consideration of camera geometry, may be used to generate more natural and distortion-free images as disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3634677, for example. The camera geometry means relative positional relationship between the camera at one of the two viewpoints and the camera at the other.